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Guiding video workflow

Apr 1, 2010 12:00 PM, By John Pallett

Video workflow management in an IT-based environment is more than just making data available.

Figure 1. As seen in this real-world example, a video workflow can be quite complex.
Select figure to enlarge.

The migration to IT is not unique to the video industry. Hundreds of industries — from automotive manufacturing to financial services to warehousing — have made this transition. Now that almost every device in the video ecosystem supports IT-based data exchange, it is tempting to suggest that the video industry has made that transition as well.

However, there is a difference between making data available and allowing the process design and management necessary to truly leverage IT. When warehouse records moved into the database, it took ERP solutions to build processes around that data before warehousing was able to find true value in IT. While many operational departments within video companies — such as finance, traffic and billing, and sales — already use IT-based solutions to manage both their data and processes, the guts of the video industry have still not truly transitioned to IT.

Specifically, the processes that surround the actual content are still evolving in support for IT-based management and control. Despite the increasing support for IT-based video infrastructure, it is nevertheless a major effort to design, implement, automate and manage video processes. (See Figure 1 on page 14.)

What type of process is lagging behind? For our purposes, a video workflow is a content-centric process that creates, acquires, modifies or deploys video media assets and supporting metadata. Such processes can be found in news production, spot management, post production, and virtually any other business that creates and manages video.

These video workflows are different from a business-centric or data-centric process, which primarily concerns itself with business rules, and the manipulation of business records in a database. Such business processes may in fact involve media — the business process of creating a report for an advertising client may involve a proxy of last year's spot — but generally the primary goal of such business processes is not the management of the media itself. And in fact, such business processes are well-addressed by IT-based tools such as SOA middleware. So why can't the same be said for video workflows? And who cares?

A lot of people care. The number of IT-based video workflows is on the rise, largely because of two driving forces. First, as revenues from traditional distribution channels decline, content owners and broadcasters are forced to support more distribution channels — often IT-based Web and mobile channels that require new workflows. Second, competitive pressure and the economy have led to cost-reduction and centralization efforts — creating even more need for IT-based workflow automation as headcount is replaced by servers and as redundant work is consolidated at low-cost operations centers. The net result of these forces is that video operations managers and station engineers must design, implement and manage more video workflows with fewer people. And in doing so, various approaches to managing those workflows have appeared.

What makes video workflows unique?

To explore the advantages and disadvantages of each approach, it is best to start by looking at some of the unique characteristics of video workflows. What makes video different?

Video workflows tend to involve multiple versions of content
Most video workflows involve numerous versions of some original footage. Content versions may be in different locations, in different file formats, or treated for different formats and different distribution channels. It is not enough to simply create these versions; they must be linked and tracked, and process design must allow the use of different versions at different stages of the course.
Video processes tend to change frequently — yearly, monthly, even weekly
Video operations teams have always been under pressure to be flexible. Whether supporting new distribution channels, new advertising customer requests or changing deadlines, there are always opportunities for process changes.
Video processes tend to involve large, metadata-heavy assets and CPU-intensive processing
Process steps that modify, analyze, capture or play video tend to be fairly CPU- and storage-intensive. As a result, multiserver load-balancing and storage management are often necessary.
Video processes tend to involve highly interdependent steps and systems
Many of the typical steps and systems in a video workflow require more than just a video file. Systems often require advertising information, scheduling instructions, rights permissions and other content metadata before they know what to do.

Further compounding the complexity, another type of metadata — process metadata — is becoming common as individual components become more focused upon their individual task. For example, what use is detecting macro-blocking artifacts if the time code of the error is lost? What value is automatic curtain detection if the curtains cannot be cropped downstream using the result of analysis?

Traditional approaches to managing video workflow

Traditional ways of managing video workflow include:

Digital asset management
Digital asset management (DAM) tools tend to be good at managing large, metadata-heavy assets; they excel at searching and indexing metadata, and at managing storage.

Although DAM systems have added some rudimentary process design tools over the last few years, more sophisticated processes usually involve custom engineering or system integration. DAM systems do not natively preserve video-specific data types in a way that facilitates process design. Finally, DAM systems usually rely upon third-party components to handle 24/7 reliability and load-balancing for mission-critical operations.
IT middleware
Middleware is software that allows the combination of software components to execute processes. There are dozens of generic IT middleware solutions on the market today. The capabilities of middleware vary. Some allow visual process design, some enable integrations with third-party components using SOAP, and others require system integration. In most cases, however, middleware is flexible and does not prescribe a particular operating model.

However, while middleware generally allows process design and management for business processes, they tend to lack core capabilities for managing content-centric processes such as video workflows.

For example, while middleware may allow data exchange between third-party components, it typically does not support data types necessary for video (such as time code), and relies upon underlying components to perform their own data interchange. As a result, middleware approaches will typically rely upon file format standards such as Adobe XMP or MXF to pass information between process steps.

Further, middleware generally expects that action within the process be fairly transactional. Load-balancing and failover becomes the responsibility of underlying components. Middleware also does not generally provide for the management and execution of 24/7 services.
Transcoding solutions
Video process design tools can often be found as part of transcoding and multichannel distribution solutions. Such tools are easy to use and have strong integration between process steps — allowing the management of multiple content versions and the passing of process-required metadata between steps. They also generally handle load-balancing and 24/7 uptime as needed for the processes that they support, and many of them allow process design “out of the box” at a reasonable price point.